


Being Between Two Lives

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-11
Updated: 2012-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-29 08:37:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"He's gone now," Fiona said softly. "Was that enough, do you think, or is he expecting me to keep you all night?"</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Between Two Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Lamardeuse and Missmollyetc for all their help with this story!

Kissing Fiona was easy. James had always liked kissing Fiona. Kissing, and sex, had always been the only times he was reasonably sure he was feeling what he was supposed to feel with her, for her. When he was kissing Fiona he stopped worrying about everything else for a little while.

Of course, all kisses ended sooner or later, and this one rather sooner. Even though he knew there would be nothing more after this, James held her close, his forehead against hers, his eyes closed. He didn't want to hear what she was going to say any sooner than he had to. She hadn't said anything at all yet, only let him in with that fond, understanding smile, led him to an empty room where there had once been a bed, and stepped into his arms to be kissed.

"He's gone now," Fiona said softly. "Was that enough, do you think, or is he expecting me to keep you all night? I'm going back to London once I've finished cleaning up here, but I could take you with me--send you home on the train all rumpled and wearing the same clothes...."

Her voice was warming, teasing in every sense of the word. James turned his face away but kept his eyes closed and his arms around her. He turned his face away from the place where Lewis had been standing on the pavement, the place where, according to Fiona, he wasn't anymore.

"I'm sure you could think of a reason to pop round his place on your way home," Fiona went on, sliding a hand over his chest. "Show him you got what he wanted for you."

James sighed and let go, turning his back fully to the window on the street. "Fiona--"

Fiona moved to stand beside him, bumping her shoulder against his. "Well, honestly, Jim, what should I think, when he's standing on the pavement seeing you off like it's your first day of school, and you're on my doorstep giving me that sheepish smile?"

"No, you're right," James said, because there was no denying it. "I'm here because it was easier than trying to explain it to him. It's just--he didn't want me to make up with you. He wanted to be sure I'd gotten closure."

" _Closure!_ " Fiona repeated, high-pitched as if she might have been about to laugh. But she didn't make another sound, and after a beat of silence she leaned her head against his shoulder.

He leaned his head against hers, and said, not remotely for the first time, but very likely for the last, "I'm sorry."

It was Fiona's turn to sigh and turn away. "And I'm finished telling you it's all right and it's not your fault you're built that way. It's just rubbish, and that's what we get because neither of us has grown a pair. You'll still do whatever you can to make your DI happy as long as it's not telling him the truth, and I still haven't got the right parts to have any chance of stealing your heart away from him."

Fiona had excellent instincts; she turned at just the right second to catch his unguarded reaction to that little pronouncement. It was, in point of fact, a roll of the eyes. Fiona talking about him and Lewis and telling the truth always wound up involving a lot of mentions of Byron and Shelley; if she was in a real strop she'd start dragging the Americans into it, quoting Walt Bloody Whitman. Quite apart from his feelings on 19th Century free verse, James was pretty sure that her whole idea about him and Lewis was, in his granny's delicate phrase, a load of bollocks.

Fiona smiled wryly. "No, I suppose you're right. Doesn't matter what I've got between my legs, I never had a chance of taking you from him. No one does."

Hathaway shrugged and looked away. He was finished trying to explain it to her, too. He'd been finished weeks ago, even before she found out about the promotion. That had only pushed them to the logical conclusion.

"Can I help you with anything before I go?"

"Sure," Fiona said, and walked away, back into the kitchen. She picked up a fairly hefty bag of rubbish and said, "Put that in the bin on your way out?"

Hathaway accepted it, noting that it was heavier than it looked, and that he had a limited amount of time to walk to the bin before it was in danger of tearing. "I can't help but sense a metaphor here, Inspector McKendrick."

Fiona grinned and tapped the side of her nose. "We'll make a detective of you yet, Sergeant. Now get out of my house."

* * *

James dawdled a little on his way to the pub. The thought crossed his mind that Lewis might have concluded he was well shut of his sergeant for the night and gone home, but James didn't seriously entertain the possibility. He'd asked for a pint, and he knew Lewis wouldn't countenance the possibility of James turning up at the pub and being disappointed, no matter what he'd seen through the window before he went away.

It wasn't reluctance to see Lewis that slowed James's footsteps. It was just that he was carrying out, for the hundredth time, the imaginary conversation in which he attempted to tell the truth to Lewis about what there was between them. He liked to imagine that Lewis would understand, would _believe_ him, which Fiona never quite had, no matter how often she said she understood.

He might lead with _I'm fond of you, sir_ , which Lewis almost certainly wouldn't understand, because James had arrived at his own private, specialized definition of the word _fond_. He'd needed a word for how he felt about Lewis, the warmth of affection and attraction without any expectation that it would ever be expressed or returned in kind. He knew he didn't feel the way he ought to about Lewis, but it was nearly the first time he'd ever erred by feeling _more_ than he should for anyone. James rather treasured the sensation.

Lewis would probably just clear his throat and say _I'm fond of you myself, lad_ , and that might be the whole conversation, right there, as far as speaking went. But Lewis would still be there in the pub waiting for James. He would still sit beside him and buy him pints, still want him to be happy without ever expecting James to be more, to feel more, to enter into the dark maze of a romantic relationship. James had never been particularly passionate, not about other people, not beyond the merely physical. He didn't mind that; it was something he knew about himself. It was a safe way to live.

It was only the delusions of grandeur which could be dangerous, and if James ever suffered any such delusions he thought he could trust Lewis to bring him straight back down to earth. He stepped through the door of the pub and spotted Lewis immediately, sitting at a table toward the back with two pints on the table in front of him, one sipped at and one untouched.

He found himself thinking _You're a good cop and you'd stop me_ , and he couldn't restrain a smile as he walked over.

Lewis smiled back, looking amused and yet hopeful. Lewis was certainly a romantic, through and through, but James didn't mind watching that from where he stood. It was something about Lewis that he was fond of, that capacity for finding happiness in other people, even vicariously. Even if James was about to disappoint him.

"Went that well, did it?" Lewis asked, waving him away. "Go on, man, go back to her."

James shook his head and dropped into his seat, tamping his smile down to the sort he usually showed Lewis. "Went better than that, sir. Said a proper goodbye, agreed it would never have worked out anyway, and there an end."

Lewis still looked a bit skeptical, but he tapped the rim of his glass against James's when James offered his, and he didn't say anything further about sending James back to Fiona.

"So this whole case, the one thing I never did make sense of," James said, waiting a beat for Lewis to raise his eyebrows, "is why you've got Uccello's _Hunt in the Forest_ on a set of coasters."

Lewis smiled and launched into a story about Lyn going to the Ashmolean on a school trip, which turned into an exchange of stories about odd gifts they'd each received. Lewis always explained who he'd gotten the gift from and why they'd thought it was a good idea; James never specified. He made Lewis laugh four times before he finished his pint, and figured that was a good night's work.

"Oh no you don't," Lewis said, when James made a motion toward getting on his way. "Next round's on you, lad. Only fair."

That meant, of course, that the next round was also on Lewis. But it also meant Lewis wasn't entirely sure that James was all right, and didn't intend to let him out of his sight just yet. James could have switched to orange juice--should have, probably--but if he did then Lewis might believe him when he insisted he was fine, and the night would end.

Maybe it was all right, just this once, to take what he was being offered.

* * *

Near the end of his second pint, James got distracted--allowed himself to become distracted--studying Lewis's hands. He wasn't even gesturing, just sitting with one hand curled idly around his empty glass. James liked Lewis's hands--was fond of every part of him he'd ever seen, and some he'd only occasionally imagined--and even more he liked seeing him at rest, still and steady. If they were in the middle of a case, Lewis would be busy, thinking, turning over some idea or another, but now, when the problem was solved... here they were, still together.

Lewis snapped his fingers twice, and James looked up, startled, to find a smile on Lewis's face, and a look in his eyes that was almost....

Almost fond.

James blinked and the look was gone, replaced by an ordinary warm amusement. "Think you've had enough, Hathaway."

So he had. Enough to drink, and as much as he was allowed of sitting here with Lewis, taking up Lewis's time when he wasn't even upset about Fiona leaving. James nodded and stood, only feeling the second pint a little as he did.

They walked out together, and set out side-by-side. James stared down at the street and tried to work out what he'd really seen on Lewis's face when he looked up. Surely it was just the ordinary kind of fondness, just normal affection, just like he'd imagined Lewis saying.

Only Lewis, like Fiona, was a detective, and he'd been at it longer than Fiona and James combined.

They were a few strides beyond the corner when James recognized that Lewis hadn't paused, said good night, turned down the street toward his own house.

"You're walking me home," James said, not making it a question.

"Looks that way," Lewis agreed, and for just a moment he set his hand on the back of James's arm. It was almost the same motion as offering his arm to hold, but just a touch, there and gone before James could be sure of it.

James kept his eyes on the street.

Lewis followed him to the door and through it, when they reached his building--followed him straight into his flat. James turned back when Lewis didn't follow him further than the door. The blinds were all open as usual, letting in enough light from the street to see by. If he turned on a light they'd be visible to anyone passing by on the pavement, but right now they could only be seen by each other.

"You really are fine, aren't you," Lewis said, and that wasn't a question either.

James wanted to look away and didn't. The question ought to have been disgusted or disbelieving--a recognition of James's essential coldness, essential defectiveness, his failure to properly want anything or anyone he should have wanted. Instead it sounded wistful.

"As I said," James agreed, studying Lewis's face, looking for what he'd glimpsed before. All he saw was Lewis looking back, trying to suss him out.

"You don't mind it?" Lewis asked, and his voice was soft, but his eyes were intent. "You don't mind being alone?"

"I'm not alone, sir," James said, and even as he said it he heard himself saying it wrong, miles away from the cool, dry quip he should have made it. He finished it anyway, because Lewis would know even if he didn't say the rest out loud, and James wasn't a coward. "I have you."

Lewis smiled, and the feeling that flashed through his eyes was something else this time. It was something like resignation; he would never stoop to saying _Aye, and who've I got?_ but James could see it on him. And James wasn't a coward. Not here, not with Lewis, who would shout them right out of any dark maze they walked into together.

James took a step forward. Lewis would never start it, not if he weren't sure James wanted it, and never if James had had a couple of pints and might be a little off balance. Lewis stood his ground, raising a hand not to ward James off but to catch his arm and guide him in.

Kissing Lewis was a little bit like taking a curve too fast on the motorway in the dark, that floating sensation of too much momentum and everything just slightly out of control, disaster just a flash of light away. James's heart was racing, and he had no idea whether he was doing this right, lost in the fact of doing it at all.

Lewis pushed him back gently, with his hand flat on James's chest, right over his heart. James blinked at Lewis, feeling suddenly dizzily drunk, suddenly entirely overwhelmed.

Lewis was smiling.

"I think that's enough to be going on with, Jim. Get some sleep. We can sort the rest out later."

That would be good. In the morning he could try to understand what he'd just done. In the morning he would go to work and Lewis would be there waiting.

James smiled. "I'm going to spend the rest of your money on flowers. For DI McKendrick. To thank her."

Lewis's smile widened. "Sign them from me as well, then. I don't expect she'll be surprised."

James shook his head in agreement, and said experimentally, "Robbie."

Lewis raised his eyebrows, still smiling, as though he expected James to say something else after that, as if the mere vocative didn't say everything James wanted to say. His hand still rested over James's pounding heart. He had to know.

"On the card," James offered.

"Ah, yes," Lewis agreed, leaned in and kissed him again, just off center, on the corner of his mouth. "On the card."


End file.
